Recycle plastic packages from online purchases, protect environment, consumers urged

Its Corporate Affairs general manager, Mohd Norlisam Mohd Nordin said that since online purchases ranked as the top choice among consumers during the Movement Control Order (MCO), Conditional MCO and Recovery MCO period, surely they would involve the use of lots of plastic packages.

“As such, we expect the dumping of plastic packages to continue to increase following the new norm of online purchases.

“The plastic waste that is generated takes about 400 years to decompose and generating too much plastic waste will make landfill sites compact as well as shorten their life spans,” he said in a statement today.

According to him, there was a 20 per cent increase in plastic waste recorded in 2018 compared to 2005, which was 44.5 per cent.

Mohd Norlisam said prudent waste management, especially plastic waste, is very important to ensure that the waste does not burden landfills and enable existing land resources to be used for national development purposes as well as the development of new landfill sites.

He also urged people in Negeri Sembilan, Melaka and Johor to continue to cultivate the practice of recycling from home and to register as members in the KITARecycle programme to help protect the environment.

“More than 20 items that can be recycled and earn reward points (under the programme) include papers, plastics, drink cans, metals, batteries, electronic items such as laptops, smartphones and televisions,” he said.

The KITARecycle programme is a reward-based recycling programme that enables registered members to collect reward points through recycling practices and redeem accumulated points through online money transfers, he explained.